24 Hours Have Gone By

At six pm today I made it. Twenty four hours without Facebook. I tried to distract myself with other things like real people, food, and YouTube but every once in a while I noticed its absence. To be honest it wasn’t like having my arm cut off or something but I did notice it was gone. I like to post interesting things I here, say, or think of in my status every now and again and this day seemed to have more than usual. I watched a new movie which had impeccable quotes, but I doubt the will ever see their way to my Facebook now, as I forget things quite easily. The hardest part was telling my friend that I couldn’t talk to her on Facebook as we normally do. My friend can’t text, so almost every day we chat on Facebook because she is in San Diego and I am in Northridge. At first she thought I had something to do for English and we could just talk later, I had to explain more of what I was doing so that she wouldn’t be disappointed when I didn’t come back on later. We worked it out but it was very different from every other day. To be honest, I’m not quite sure that I would be able to give Facebook up completely if it still existed in some form because I do rely on it for a good percentage of my communication. It is quite a shock for me to say this because for my years I didn’t have Facebook, and now it has become a fact of my life. I can only wonder, what  would happen if someday it just didn’t exist anymore.

Distractions We Carry With Us

How often do you see this?

In the commentary “Society Is Dead, We Have Retreated into the iWorld” by Andrew Sullivan the author talks about how it seems that the white wires of iPods have cut us off from the world. In the text he gives an example, the author is ending his trip, when he realizes that he has left his iPod behind. He panics, but then realizes what he has been missing out on. As he looks around he notices the little social cues all around him, he sees just how people interact. With this in mind I will admit it, I have headphones in right now and they of course have music running through them in to my ears. Personally I need to have music to work, without it I am so distracted it takes me hours to write two sentences, although I would not call myself addicted in the same way as Sullivan describes. I never walk with my headphones in and half the time I couldn’t tell you where my mp3 player is. I have seen individuals like this though, and it does affect their lives. Whereas I walk places with people and talk to them as we go, they are in their own world the whole way, and this makes them almost run it accidents all the time. It is not because they can’t hear (I know many Deaf people and they don’t almost get run over by bikes every day) it is because the music steals their attention from what matters most, people.

Plugged in or Plugged out?

Is this what your family looks like?

In “Is Being ‘Plugged In’ Changing Campus Life?” the authors discuss how technology effects the socialization of college students.  Just scrolling through the internet we all see it, people who are present in everything but mind. Many people are concerned about what being “plugged in” does to how we socialize. Families are sometimes jeopardized by the usage of personal entrainment devices (such as phones, laptops, etc.). Another concern is directed towards college students. One of the main elements to college is socialization with peers, however this socialization is becoming less and less. Students can often be found now in their respective rooms, their ears plugged up with headphones and their faces stuck in a T.V. show. As a college student myself I can tell you that this is true. I live in a building that has a very small number of residents (there are three floors, but only two of them are occupied) and I have yet to meet every person who lives here. Even at the mandatory floor meetings not everyone comes, some have never come once. To make matters worse my building requires that you fulfill a certain amount of community hours, so there is no lack of incentive. Many times these people aren’t even with their friends, they are just absorbed in what they happen to be doing at the moment. This behavior is not conducive to a community. Communities require us to interact with each other, a community will fall apart if its members are not unified and do not socialize. These are the vital building blocks to a community.

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Introductions

Hello. Welcome to my blog. I am not a blogger so please be patient, everyone improves in time. I was born and raised in San Diego, California. I would like to believe that this gave me a laid-back view of the world. I have lived most of my life in San Diego, up until now. I am a freshman and I currently go to Cal State Northridge as a Deaf Studies major. This blog is for my English 115 class, to respond to assignments in class with visual elements in a new way. I will post my responses here, on my blog.